Wrought

How to spell wrought

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce wrought

What does wrought mean?

1. adjectiveOf metal, especially iron, that has been beaten or hammered into shape rather than cast.
2. verbAn old past form of 'work', meaning shaped, brought about, or caused (typically of changes or damage).

Wrought in a sentence

• adjective

  The old gates were made of heavy wrought iron.

• verb

  The storm wrought terrible damage along the coast.

• adjective

  A wrought iron balcony framed the upstairs window.

• verb

  Decades of reform wrought deep changes in the legal system.

Where does wrought come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is an old past tense and past participle of the verb 'work', going back to Old English worhte and geworht, the past forms of wyrcan, which simply meant 'to work, to make, to fashion'. By the regular sound changes of English the older 'worht' shifted in spelling and pronunciation to 'wrought', while the verb itself acquired the now-standard regular forms 'worked'. The initial w was once pronounced, just as in 'write' and 'wrong', but English speakers stopped sounding the w before r centuries ago, leaving it as a silent reminder of the word's Germanic roots. Because the everyday meaning of 'work' shifted toward labour and employment, 'wrought' survived mainly in the special sense of metal that has been hammered or shaped by hand, as in 'wrought iron', and in fixed expressions such as 'wrought havoc' or 'what hath God wrought'. That narrowing is why the word now feels formal or old-fashioned, and why its spelling, with the silent w and the -ought cluster, traps writers who expect it to look like 'rot' or 'rought'.

How the word is built

• wrought (irregular past form of 'work', from Old English worhte/geworht); the silent w- preserves the old Germanic spelling